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No bail for prison murder suspect

By Katina Caraganis , kcaraganis@sentinelandenterprise.com

Updated:
08/16/2014 07:56:08 AM EDT

MCI Shirley inmate Allan Erazo, 27, in Clinton District Court with attorney Dan Cronin, is arraigned on a murder charge after he allegedly beat another inmate, which led to his death on the way to the hospital.
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CLINTON -- Allan Erazo was supposed to be released next month from the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center after serving a two-year sentence for stabbing a Chelsea cab driver. Instead, he is being held without bail after his arraignment on charges he beat another inmate to death.

William Sires, 72, was found badly beaten in his cell at 2 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Worcester County District Attorney's office. He was pronounced dead about half an hour later while en route to HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster.

Erazo is charged with murder.

Assistant District Attorney Tim Westerman cited the serious nature of the crime, the mandatory life sentence it carries, Erazo's inability to adhere to probation, his lack of ties to the community and a history of defaults before various courts as reasons why Erazo should not be released on bail.

Erazo's attorney, David Cronin, did not object to the notion but asked that it be set without prejudice so he could petition the court for it later.

Westerman said Erazo, 27, has a history of violence, with prior convictions for assault and battery and carjacking out of East Boston District Court and was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison.

"The fact that he received the maximum House of Corrections sentence on his first conviction certainly suggests that was a serious crime," he said.

Just months after his release, Westerman said, Erazo was convicted of stabbing a cab driver and was serving that sentence in Souza-Baranowski, a maximum sercurity prison that straddles the Shirley-Lancaster line.

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He was also the subject of two harassment orders by two women between September 2008 and Sepember 2009.

As a juvenile, he was placed on probation but violated it and was put in the custody of the Department of Youth Services, Westerman said.

During the arraignment, in which Erazo was dressed in prison scrubs and handcuffs and showed no emotion, Westerman laid out details of the allegations as follows:

* An argument broke out among Erazo, Sires and two other inmates just before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. The argument quickly escalated to a physical confrontation but was broken up by inmates.

* Minutes later, Erazo appeared to enlist the help of several other inmates. Erazo and Sires exchanged words again, and Sires attempted to walk away.

* At 1:30 p.m., Erazo and the two other inmates approached a cell. Erazo and one inmate entered the cell, while the third remained outside, possibly as a lookout.

* Sires, with the assistance of a cane, began walking toward his cell. As he approached his cell, the defendant "violently" pulled Sires into the cell from behind. The curtain on the cell was closed, obstructing what was going on inside from guards.

* Erazo stayed in the cell for 30 minutes before the guards discovered a "bloody scene." Erazo told guards Sires was dead as "a result of his doing."

Westerman said Sires' facial injuries were so severe that he was barely recognizable. An autopsy was conducted and determined the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head and possible asphyxiation with severe injuries to his airways and cranium.

Sires was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the Sept. 5, 1973, murder of his mother, Anna Sires, who was shot three times inside her Dalton home after arguing with him about a loan and for playing his stereo too loudly.

Sires confessed to the killing, saying he had been drinking with a friend and when he returned home that night, he took a loaded gun from his car and shot his mother.

He was initially convicted of first-degree murder in 1974 but the ruling was overturned by the Supreme Judicial Court because the trial judge erred in giving his instructions to the jury.

He then turned down a plea deal in which he would have pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, which would have made him eligible for parole years ago.

Instead, he opted for a jury trial and was convicted in 1990 of first-degree murder. A first-degree murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence without the option for parole.

State police detectives assigned to the Worcester District Attorney's Office and the Department of Correction continue to investigate the slaying at the Shirley prison.

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